Sixth surplus delivers for Rockhampton

Published on 26 June 2018

Strong financial management has set up a decade of forecast surpluses in today’s 18-19 draft Budget presented to Council.

Mayor Margaret Strelow said strong financial management had allowed Council to deliver an underlying surplus this Budget of $2.2 million.

“This is the culmination of six years of responsible Budgeting and I have to pay tribute to our finance team who have watched the pennies during this time,” Mayor Strelow said.

“We are in a very different situation today than what we were six years ago at de-amalgamation, when it was predicted the cost of splitting would leave us insolvent within two years without taking action.

“We had to make some tough calls and, as a result, our Long-Term Financial Plan now forecasts surpluses of at least a million dollars each year for the next 10 years. That strong fiscal responsibility will continue to be at the core of our decision making moving forward.

“What a surplus does is give us a buffer for the unexpected which can pop up, like the global changes to the recycling market, to minimise the impact on our ratepayers.

“It gives us the scope to put our balance sheet to work on job-creating infrastructure in order to grow our economy now and into the future.

“This Budget includes our own funding as well as grants we expect to receive to build those major pieces of infrastructure.

“Our inherited debt from de-amalgamation remains too high and, while there is still a lot of work to be done, we have reduced debt by $36.5 million since de-amalgamation.

“We know that we inherited a high level of debt so we have made it a priority to bring that debt down as quickly as possible and we are continuing down the path set two years ago on an accelerated debt repayment plan.

“While we are in the strongest position financially we have been in since de-amalgamation, we need to maintain that discipline so we can continue to invest in our community as well as deliver the core services of local government,” Mayor Strelow said.